The invention relates to methods of measuring consumer reaction to marketing stimuli.
Consumer reaction to a marketing stimulus (e.g., a television commercial) is typically assessed by means of exposing members of a focus group to the marketing stimulus (e.g., having the focus group watch the commercial) and obtaining the reactions and comments of the members immediately after exposure to the marketing stimulus by means of a written questionnaire and/or a personal interview. While generally effective, such a technique suffers from several drawbacks, including a tendency for members of a focus group to express inaccurately their reaction to marketing stimuli due to social pressure and limited self-awareness.
Hence, a longstanding need exists for a more reliable, scientific technique and methodology for measuring consumer reaction to marketing stimuli.
The invention is directed to a method of assessing consumer reaction to a marketing stimulus, involving the steps of (a) exposing a sample population of at least two members to a marketing stimulus for a period of time, (b) measuring surface electromyography signals from a zygomatic muscle of each member of the sample population during an exposure period, (c) optionally measuring surface electromyography signals from a corrugator facial muscle of each member of the sample population during the exposure period and combining the measured surface electromyography signals from the zygomatic and corrugator facial muscle of each member of the sample population to produce combined electromyography signals, (d) measuring electrodermography signals, selected from at least one of galvanic skin response signals, skin conductance level signals and skin potential level signals, of each member of the sample population during the exposure period, (e) equating or translating the electromyography signals to an appeal value for each member, (f) equating or translating the electrodermography signals to an impact value for each member, and (g) visually representing each of the appeal and impact values identified by the marketing stimulus to which the members were exposed when the measurements were taken.
By visually representing the appeal and impact values together for a given marketing stimulus for a given member (hereinafter xe2x80x9cmember set of appeal and impact valuesxe2x80x9d) on a single illustration, the overall relative marketing value of the stimulus (i.e., extent to which consumers were impacted and whether such impact was favorable or unfavorable) can be understood. When desired, the group appeal and impact values can be determined with the group appeal and group impact values visually represented on a single illustration.
The method preferably involves repeating steps (a) through (f) for several different marketing stimuli with members of the sample group, and then visually comparing sets of appeal and the impact values for each of the marketing stimuli so as to allow a relative comparison of the marketing stimuli.